


Running Risks

by Xelfi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Curtain Fic, Gen, Homestuck Shipping Olympics, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 01:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xelfi/pseuds/Xelfi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a bonus round of the 2012 HSO, and only now being posted to AO3.  Procrastination knows no bounds.  And still two more to come~</p><p>Prompt: Space Opera meets Curtainfic, Karkat♦Kanaya</p><p>A malfunctioning artificial gravity unit isn't a serious problem on its own but it certainly makes daily routines unnecessarily complicated and runs the risk of further damaging the ship.  Unfortunately, the closest settled planet with the technology required for repairs is far from ideal, but Kanaya has a plan (and Karkat complains).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Risks

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [and her pale fire she snatches from the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/255984) by [angerliz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angerliz/pseuds/angerliz), [arbitraryspace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitraryspace/pseuds/arbitraryspace), [astrophrenia (closetplayground)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/closetplayground/pseuds/astrophrenia), [esotericat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esotericat/pseuds/esotericat), [satoru_13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/satoru_13/pseuds/satoru_13). 



> Possible trigger: a hypothetical noncon/gore/vore scenario as ranted by Karkat Vantas.
> 
> This fic borrows the AU written for the Karkat♦Kanaya collab round in 2011 as a setting. If you haven't read it yet, "and her pale fire she snatches from the sun" is highly recommended.

If it were not for (a) your knowledge of the device's average lifespan, (b) the fact that it had tenaciously carried on long past its professionally recommended due date with the waste disposal chute, (c) how your moirail had asked you just last week if there were any spare parts that should be purchased while you were planet-side, and (d) her general lack of expertise with the finer details of technology, you'd suspect that she planned the whole thing. But, no, it was just Current You paying for Past You's idiotic short-sightedness once again.

It really made you wonder, though, how *prepared* she was for this scenario. Also, the softly playing classical music added a distinctive layer of whimsy to the atmosphere as the two of you floated in your shared living space among all her loose fabrics and miscellaneous belongings that were no longer contained in random piles on the floor thanks to your ship's busted artificial gravity system. Maybe now she would understand why it was so important to keep everything tidy. Maybe if you talked fast enough, she'd even forget to remind you that it wouldn't have been an issue if you'd bothered to seek the services of a proper mechanic now and then.

Thankfully, malfunctioning artificial gravity by itself didn't cause any issues with life support or navigation, so the two of you were safely drifting through space on autopilot and on route to the nearest settled planet for now, but you never could tell--especially on an older ship model like yours--when something small and insignificant could slip through a crack and into some important wiring and become very significant very fast. You couldn't risk not having it fixed as soon as possible. Safety aside, it was also extremely annoying to deal with during supposedly simple tasks like eating and sleeping without clogging vital, delicate instruments with floating bits of food and sopor slime, not to mention your horrific struggles with the ablution block.

You were also lucky to have only been only a few standard night/day cycles away from intelligent life, but why, oh why, did it have to be the particular intelligent life with such hostile mating rituals that it made even the most pitch troll relationship seem pale in comparison? The particular intelligent life that, weirdly enough, could only procreate through male/female pairs and nearly wiped itself out of existence before reaching their space age and banishing an entire gender to another planet while reserving a third planet as neutral territory for their typically fatal reproductive shenanigans?

At least you were heading for the designated female planet, she said. At least it wasn't the planet of deadly sensual relations, she said.

At least she was actually a woman and therefore had no need to worry about being molested and torn to pieces and fed to the next generation of terrifying cannibalistic sexual predators if they caught sight of her junk, you said, and please, couldn't she just seal you into a wall or something until the ship is repaired and you were a few solar systems away from this idiocy???

Nonsense, she said. You had to be present to help negotiate an acceptable payment and you actually understood more than a handful of the mechanical terms they would undoubtedly be using, not to mention your sweeps of experience with hiding a biological deviance in plain sight. Also, you ought to stop talking for a moment so she could apply your lipstick properly.

You still think the dress is counter-productive in keeping your genitalia under wraps (a fact made painfully obvious in zero-g) and you plan on telling her that just as soon as she's done painting your face.


End file.
